


Can't Save, Won't Lose You (A Meetings Remix)

by navaan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Alcoholic Tony Stark, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avengers Vol. 1 (1963), Emotionally Repressed, Fix-It, Getting Together, Inspired by Fanart, Iron Man Vol. 1 (1968), M/M, Pining, Recovery, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 03:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16884597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Tony is falling into the bottle and in the events inIron Man #172and after Steve has to investigate his own feelings of anger and helplessness – and what's beneath it.





	Can't Save, Won't Lose You (A Meetings Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Apivotal's Cap-IronMan Remix Relay Special Art Chain example](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/438267) by Apivotal. 



> Uses the events of _Iron Man (1968-1996) #172_ , This is an alternate remix of [Apivotal's awesome art that you can see here](https://cap-ironman-fe.dreamwidth.org/7452.html#cutid3) that I created for our [Example Chain here](https://cap-ironman-fe.dreamwidth.org/7452.html). I thought it would still be interesting to see. We hope to see artists and writers sign-up for our special relay chain soon! ([Remix 2019 Schedule](https://cap-ironman.dreamwidth.org/1971049.html))

Janet had shrunk down to her Wasp size and flew beside Steve as he brushed past the elevator doors and instead rushed down the stairs too fast. For a moment there was nothing but the sound of his boots hitting the stairs in a staccato of anger. When he reached the last landing, he abruptly stopped, making Janet's small form brush over his shoulder before she realized he had stopped and hovered in mid-air.

From her face, he could tell she was as upset as he was.

“Steve?”

He grabbed the sharply curling banister, leaving a dent in its perfection.

“Steve," Janet said more softly and allowed herself to grow back to her normal size.

"Steve, it's bad, isn't it? It's so bad. Tony – he's so sad... Why didn't I know?"

The warmth and compassion in her eyes – it's just part of her. Steve knew few people who were as open-hearted as Janet Van Dyne.

In his eyes, Tony had been one of these few for the longest time.

Thinking of the man who was in his apartment upstairs, drinking himself out of his wits, his grip tightened and the metal gave a pitiful screech.

“Steve, don't be angry. We need to help him.”

“We've had to search for him at three of his apartments before we could even find him and...” He pressed a heavy gauntlet over his eyes, tried to ease his grip on the banister. “He didn't even _tell_ us he gave the armor to someone else, Jan. He doesn't want help.”

A small reassuring hand settled at his shoulder. “I know,” Janet whispered. “I shouldn't have brought up Hank. That was stupid...”

“Tony was drunk,” Steve said and tied to calm himself before he looked at her. “I've never seen him like this. This isn't him.”

But perhaps that was a lie. Perhaps he had seen Tony like this before. He'd seen him reach the end of his rope, yes. He remembered Tony, exhausted and unraveling, unable to sleep – and back then Tony had decided that he was going to date _Jan_.

Steve had been so angry then too – and he'd never stopped to investigate his own feelings as worry and unease had mixed into something more volatile. So they'd argued. Should Steve have stopped then? Should Steve have stopped now? How long had Tony been drinking and why? Why _would_ someone like Tony walk down the path of self-destruction? Someone who had it all? Money, power, a good heart? Someone who was attractive and could have whatever he wanted?

Why was he destroying himself?

Was there something Steve couldn't see?

“Not your fault, Cap," Jan whispered before he had found an answer to his silent questions.

It wasn't, perhaps, his fault. He couldn't help feeling responsible though. 

Steve knew that sometimes he was hard on on people he cared for and worked with – especially Tony. Sometimes lives depended on it in the field. He needed to know who to trust – and so far Tony – _Iron Man_ – had made the top of the list without fail. They'd had their disagreement – like when Tony had decided to date Janet and Steve had hidden behind the idea that it wasn't _appropriate_ because Janet was still Hank's wife and only later when he'd seen magazine covers with pictures of Jan and Tony smiling at each other, taken during the brief time when they'd actually gone out, had Steve understood that there was a reason for his anger, his moodiness, his depression. He wasn't feeling sorry for Hank, or angry at Tony for leading Jan astray. Steve had realized for the first time then that the unease, the sadness that had curled through him with pain that was _physical_ and devastating was much more dangerous; he had felt sorry for himself, _afraid_ he was losing Tony.

He'd been lonely. Every time he went for a relationship – it ended badly, made life complicated, made other people and himself unhappy. He hadn't given up on the idea of love, but he knew he'd rather not ruin an already often complicated partnership that he needed to rely on in the field. Because it was the _most important relationship he had_. Tony was important to him.

Even now.

“Steve!” Jan's hands settled on his elbow. “Cap, you have to stop. You're destroying the banister.”

He let go as if the metal had gone burning hot under his hands and stared at the finger-shaped dents he'd left. "I'm just so..." _Angry_. But that wasn't the word.

Anger was what at times he'd felt for his father when the man had been drunk and had treated his mother like dirt. But his father, for all his good intentions and for all the honest work he'd done in his life, had never been a brilliant man like Tony. Tony Stark was a genius, someone who, born into wealth, had found a way to use his money, influence, and mind to make the world a better place. He was an _hero_ the likes of which Steve had rarely known.

One of the most important people in his life.

_And he didn't even think it necessary to tell you that he's not in the armor anymore! You were more important than that to him once, weren't you?_

The chocked sound that escaped his throat sounded like an angry growl; only Steve would know how close he'd come to openly sobbing.

“I know...” Janet whispered and hugged him.

“It's a damn waste,” he hissed between his teeth and patted her shoulder.

Right now he had to get away.

There was nothing he could do to help Tony if he would rather battle his demons alone.

_Damn waste._

“He's destroying himself,” he muttered.

Jan hooked her arm into his; their eyes met briefly and Steve realized in Jan's sad expression that this was something she'd seen before – from close up. "Yes," she agreed with a nearly imperceptible nod. "But there's not much we can do before he figures out he doesn't want to. We need to keep an eye out and be there when he's ready."

* * *

Steve's mood hadn't improved by the time he had done some work at Avengers Mansion. Right now every room, every piece of furniture in the common areas here reminded him of Tony. He had calmed down somewhat and was pondering his options, but it was impossible to take his mind of Tony and his sickness.

Would it have helped if he had kept his cool? Would Tony have listened if Steve had told him what he was feeling? What could he offer that would make Tony listen? Wouldn't he be making everything worse?

Then the call came in.

“Iron Man?” he asked calmly. After all, now at least he knew that the man in the armor had stepped in wasn't Tony, but was acting with Tony's blessing. Iron Man could be trusted. But he wasn't the man Steve had known for years.

That still stung.

That still hurt.

That still reminded him of Tony having set himself on the path to self-destruction, unwilling to ask for Steve's help.

“Cap, we need to find Tony,” the modulated voice said, sounding like Iron Man had always sounded.

Iron Man was asking. Steve could request more details before making a decision, but he had already made up his mind not to give up on Tony. Tony mattered too much even when he was letting himself down.

“What do you need?" he asked and listened to what the man could give him. Stark's company was going down if Tony didn't get back in time to save it. Steve would find Tony and talk some sense into him. Iron Man seemed to think he as the right person for the job. Steve wasn't too sure about that, but would never forgive himself if anything happened to Tony.

He needed to try at least.

* * *

It was still a shock to find Tony in a cheap, rundown place, drinking himself out of what little sense he had left. It was disgraceful.

But more than that it was terrible.

Steve couldn't take it when tears started rolling down Tony's face and the drunk man insisted that he _had_ to lose himself in the numbing embrace of the cheap liquor.

“A man needs to want to be helped,” Steve reminded him letting more of his anger slip into his voice than he had planned on, but hoping now against hope that his anger would reach Tony where his friendship couldn't.

 _Friendship_ , he thought later when he sat alone and wallowing in his room at Avengers Mansion. _Is that still what we're calling it, Steve? You've lost Tony and you never even had him in the first place. But at least he was your friend. But friendship was not what you hoped for, deep down. You wanted something more._

He had lost Tony. After he had saved Tony from a burning building, had worked with Iron Man to get the rest of the trapped men out. Because while they had handled the fire, Tony who had been too out of it to save himself from a burning hotel minutes before had apparently sobered up enough to not only get to his feet again but use his brilliant mind to vanish from the scene.

Steve was worried sick for him.

But once more he had to accept that there was nothing he could do for Tony if the man himself didn't want to be helped.

* * *

For weeks, he only heard of what was going on at Stark International from their new Iron Man and from the occasional mention of Tony Stark and his horrible misfortune in the news.

“Gossip rags,” Janet spat one morning and threw down the magazine she'd been reading.

He later learned that different papers were claiming Tony was living on the street.

“Hard to believe,” Clint said.

“That he would fall so hard,” Wanda added.

“That he would survive out on the street on his own,” Clint corrected but then bit his lip.

“Tony was always tough,” Steve said shortly and got to his feet, fleeing the conversation.

He hadn't told anyone, but he had looked for Tony on his own. He could piece together enough to know that they were lucky they hadn't yet been invited to his funeral.

Because Tony Stark _was_ living on the streets somewhere, too proud or too lost to even come to them for help.

* * *

After a particularly tough day, Steve started to write a letter to Tony, not sure why he felt like a soldier writing home when it was home writing to a lost recruit.

“Tony,” he wrote.

“I should have told you that I was only so hard on you because you are one of the most important people in my life. You still are. Where are you?

I miss you.”

He didn't dare put down in writing what he had been hiding even from himself until now: “I love you.”

He wrote: “I let you walk away when I should have been there. I will never forgive myself for this. I hope wherever you are, you're safe and not alone and maybe remember what it's like to be happy.”

There was nowhere to send the letter. He had no intention of sending it either.

Did he feel better for writing it?

Not exactly.

He was still worried he wouldn't see Tony ever again but as with so many things he'd lost over the years, he tried to keep his eyes turned towards what lay ahead and move on. Hadn't Tony been the one to teach Steve how to let go of what was lost so he could find a place in the here and now?

* * *

When his mood had become more irritable, Janet had given him a nice suit and told him to go out with her, _pronto_.

“We both need it," she'd said and it had struck a chord with him.

But now that he was returning home to his apartment and not Avengers Mansion, alone and as tense as he'd been for weeks and weeks, he wasn't sure it had been what he needed at all. He had never been the right boy for a party among strangers.

That, too, Steve expected had been more Tony's thing – and in part to blame for his downfall.

Steve had nearly reached the door of the apartment building when Steve noticed a man standing in the shadows, a baseball cap drawn deep over his eyes, sunglasses obscuring his face. Steve noticed him in part because he seemed as tense as Steve.

Someone loitering so close to his apartment building was what made him slow down. Perhaps there was nothing to notice. It was likely that the man was waiting for a friend, a date perhaps, and was watching the street with tense shoulders because someone was running late. There didn't need to be any other reason and Steve was just a paranoid, tired superhero who spent too much time with masked people, secret hero names and agents.

But then the man's face turned to him and with the less groomed beard, it took Steve a moment to realize what - _who_ \- he was seeing.

He stopped in the street, gaping.

Then Tony pulled the sunglasses away and started walking forward, timid as if he didn't trust his own eyes, although he must have been waiting for Steve.

He looked clean; cheaply dressed, a bit out of sorts, not perfectly put together the way Steve used to see him, but healthier than the last time they'd met.

“Steve,” Tony said in a very quiet voice. “It's part of the process to make amends and I...” He faltered and looked away, biting his lip as if he wasn't sure what he was trying to say. “I need to apologize... After everything, you deserve that much even if it won't change anything.”

There were a million questions rushing through his mind. _Where have you been? How are you? Are you alright?_

None of them formed into speech. One look from Tony's uncertain gaze, a glimpse of the insecurity and _need_ there touched Steve to the core.

He captured Tony's lips in a kiss, earning a surprised gasp.

When he let up, he whispered: “Don't run away again.”

Tony smelled of soap; there wasn't even the hint of stale alcohol clinging to him. That was what hope smelled like.

“I'm only getting started,” Tony said and it sounded like caution and breathless disbelief. “I need help. I'm getting... Why did you kiss me?”

 _He's picking up the pieces_ , Steve thought. _Building himself up again. He didn't ask for help and yet he did it. What did he go through?_

“I love you,” Steve said past the knot forming in his throat and it sounded inadequate and simple, but Tony looked as if a rag had been pulled from under his feet.

Did he feel the same? Did he not? Was he shocked? Surprised? Was this too much now?

But he made no move to run from Steve.

He took Tony by the hand to lead him towards his building. “Tell me everything.”

“It's... I might not stay for...” Tony mumbled, but his fingers squeezed Steve's tightly as if he wanted to hold on for dear life.

 _After all you've been through_ , Steve though, _I won't ever let you leave me again. You survived this. There's nothing we can't survive together. Now you'll never get rid of me._

He pulled Tony along into the building.

It was high time they talked.


End file.
